After the dust has settled on E3…

So the doors have closed on another E3, and once again I didnt get to go – but then again, I’ve never been so I don’t know what I’m missing!!! Which is probably for the best!

So, what did E3 tell us about what to expect in the next 12 months and beyond?

Of the big three, Nintendo was largely a case of more of the same. Their current direction is working very well thank you very much, so for them to say anything other than “we will continue to plough this furrow” would have been insane. Follow ups to Wii Sports, Wii Fit, and Super Mario Galaxy prove that they arent going to change anything. They know their market and they are sticking with it. During their E3 press conference and since, they have said that they would like to re-engage with hard core gamers more as well, but I cannot see that happening. We know hard-core gamers and they are far too entrenched in the Microsoft and Sony camps. Even if they do look up from their GTA, COD or FIFA session, Nintendo dont seem to be offering anything along their lines.

As for Microsoft and Sony, well, I think Microsoft just edged it but both have a lot to offer the core market of gamers that we sell to.

The top ten list that IGN AU put together sums it up just fine for me – most games will come on both platforms, and where one has an exclusive like Splinter Cell: Conviction, the other has Uncharted 2. Customers often ask us which is best – 360 or PS3? And we always say “Neither – you have to have both, if you are a serious gamer”.

Exclusives will always be a part of this industry and so the only way to satisfy the addiction fully, is to make sure you get your drugs from both Microsoft and Sony. Purists like me will also say you need a Wii for the Mario/Zelda hit – and if you ask my brother, he says you need SNES, Dreamcast, NES, Megadrive etc etc etc – but that is getting off the point. This blog is about the future, not the past.

Coming back to that, both Microsoft and Sony gave tech demo’s on their answers to Nintendo’s Wiimote. Both very clever and both designed to bring more casual gamers into playing games. I have to admit – I think they both have missed the point. Although I didn’t really see it myself until earlier this week when I reflected on another presentation – Apple’s keynote at their World Wide Developer Conference. They have had huge success in a very short period of time, selling 1 Billion apps to an install base of 40 million users around the world. Not all these are gamers obviously, and certainly not hard core gamers. What some are and will increasingly be, are the casual gamers that Nintendo have succeeded in selling to and that Microsoft and Sony are courting with their tech demo’s.

As a little example, let me tell you about the picture of domestic bliss that is the Rowbotham household. I only tend to play games on 360/PS3/Wii and occasionally my PC – depending upon the latest hit that catch’s my eye. So I am core gamer – no question. My wife however over the last couple of years has drifted into the casual gamer sphere so well canvassed by Nintendo. It started with Brain Training and moved onto a bit of Wii Fit and a lot of Professor Layton – all games that have been squarely aimed at this new market that Microsoft and Sony said they are following Nintendo into. The point – well, my wife isn’t playing any of those games anymore. I bought her an iPhone for Christmas as her old phone finally died, and since then she has found a whole new world of casual apps – she spends more time on Facebook as it is convenient on her phone but she has discovered a whole new world of games from developers like PopCap that are quick and cheap to download. And now she sits happily chilling out at the end of a busy day, iPhone in hand. All of which means she has hardly picked up her Nintedo DS and the Wii Fit has got fat!!!!

And for me, this is the most interesting dynamic. Casual gamers are by their nature casual – so they will also be non-committed and transient – they will quickly move onto the next big thing. And I reckon it might just be Apple who will take all these non-core gamers away from Nintendo (and Microsoft and Sony too). A big prediction I know but no-one will hear me when I say “I told you so” in a few years – so I can pretty much say what I like really!!!

If it does happen, where does that leave our industry? And the big three of MS/Sony & Nintendo. Well, interestingly, the core gamers are still going to be here – still wanting their annual fix of COD/FIFA and bi-annual fix of GTA etc – the market may not grow by the double digit points that some shareholders might crave but it will still be strong at its heart, more than treading water thats for sure. And interestingly, Microsoft and Sony are more likely to have something to offer these guys than Nintendo. I don’t see Project Natal type interfaces opening up the market for casual gamers as much as reinforcing things for core gamers, adding more ways to interact and making games richer and more involving experiences – for those who are already hooked.

If this scenario does play out, the biggest looser here could be Nintendo – who has less to fall back on. I have played and finished every Zelda and Mario game to date, but they don’t come along often enough to keep a company the size of Nintendo going – their current market is much more reliant on casual gamers. And if Apple can distract other users like they have my wife, well who knows?

How the other half live…

Just after my last post, about how you have to be big to survive and prosper selling video games, GAME release their figures for last year as if to underline my point. (OK – maybe they didn’t release these figures just to make me look good !!!)

Reading analysis of the news on the MCV website, they pulled out the fact that GAME for the first time reported their level of pre-owned sales.

Interesting – I wonder why they have done that now?

When you produce record results at the same time as many publishers have been having a tough time, I can imagine a few account managers raising eyebrows in their direction.

My eyebrows raised when I saw how low the figure was. For the record, Playtime’s mix was always around 45% pre-owned. As we grew, it dropped but in the early days it was over 50% – so to see GAME’s at below 20% shows just why they can go public with it. If you are a publisher berating specialist retailers for having their cake and eating it, the wind has been taken out of your sails somewhat.

I don’t know exactly what GAME’s market share is in the UK but I would guess around 30%. This means their 18% of pre-owned sales is approximately 5% of the UK market. Total pre-owned sales are probably going to be a bit more than that with all the Indies focusing on it but I would be surprised if it is 10% – after all, nobody else does it. The other 70% of retail is largely made up of supermarkets, and non-specialist toy and entertainment retailers – none of whom trade games (with the exception of HMV – who have just started).

So – pre-owned is less than 10% of the market. Not a lot, basically! Certainly not enough to drastically change the results for most hard pressed developers and publishers – if it were to stop.

NB – I have assumed that GAMESTATION’s market share is included in the figures that GAME announced.

View from the Counter

So that didn’t work then did it….

Over the last five years, my brother and I tried to grow Playtime into a profitable business by opening a new store every 6-12 months.

Why do that? I hear you ask – well, it was a defense mechanism as much as anything else, the bigger you are the more we could benefit from economies of scale – marketing with publishers, buying professional labels, carrier bags etc, professional branding and merchandising in-store – the list goes on. Five years ago, we also saw the bigger indies doing well – Software Store and Eplay were winning awards and seemed to be going from strength to strength.

So why didn’t it work? Well, we were going well until last summer, then some American banker invented the words “Sub-Prime” and “Credit Crunch” and by the time we came out the other side of Christmas, we just weren’t selling as many games as we needed too. That it meant we had to shut the business should come as no surprise really – we are in a recession after all.

It is ironic that of the 10 stores we had when we shut, nearly all would still be profitable – if they were run by an owner operator – like most other “indies” are.

We found that we could run a couple of stores fine on our own, but when you get more than 3 or 4, you need to employ managers to do it for you – and good managers cost money, and they need area managers to help them, and purchasing managers to buy stock for them, and marketing managers to support them, and personnel managers to advise them – and the list goes on.

When you have the costs of a head office to cover, you need a lot more than 10 stores to make it work. This is the crux – in retail you either do it all yourself as indies across the country still do – or you need to have national coverage, to cover the costs of running a full head office. From our experience, there really is no in-between.

Screenshots now on product listings

We are about to start implementing a series of updates on the website, the first of which has been to try and increase the amount of information we put into product listings.

We are now embedding a screenshots slideshow within new releases, so if you are thinking of pre-ordering something, you can see some screenshots of the title before buying. Not all titles will have them, it depends what the publishers release, but whenever we can get them, we will put them in. We are also working on putting video in too, and for the moment embed links to video that we host on YouTube.

Some of the titles we have put slideshows on include Resident Evil, Street FIghter IV and WWE Legends of Wrestlemania

Let us know what you think!!!

The most wonderful time of the year

So as Christmas rattles towards us at a spectacularly alarming rate, we find ourselves finally free of impending releases and can take a good look at what’s been released in the last 3 months and sift through the glut that publishers and developers decide to throw out all at the same time in poorly calculated attempts to wrestle your hard earned pound from your grasp and deflect said pound from rivals pockets. Some I’ve played, some I want to play, some I won’t play until they hit the bargain bins as I’m tight/skint but let’s have a butchers anyway. In the interest of keeping short attention spans happy (probably killed by this intro anyway) lets see if I can do it in one-line-review/prize description from Bullseye stylee.

Left 4 Dead – PC, Xbox 360

Shoot Zombies into a gooey mess while cacking your pants in this ultra-violent yet enjoyable multiplayer horrorfest.

Dead Space – PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Event Horizon meets Resident Evil 4. Oh yes. Oh yes indeedy.

Prince Of Persia – Pc, Ps3, Xbox 360

Foppish Arabian prince with American pretty boy accent runs along walls while avoiding death thanks to hanger-on token game female.

Midnight Club: Los Angeles – PS3, Xbox 360

A fun yet rock hard street racer which no bugger bought.

Fable II – Xbox 360

Want to get married, fart at people and do menial, mind numbing, tedious labor-intensive mini-games and not have to bother with good things like actual questing and getting fat loot and all the good things that make RPG’s great? Well, come on in then!

Tomb Raider Underworld – PC, PS3, Xbox 360

Posh bint jumps around temples looking for Thor’s armour and hammer while shooting endangered species.

Gears Of War 2 – Xbox 360

Musclehead marines take on underground army of musclehead alien types with chainsaw guns. Again.

Call Of Duty: World At War – PC, PS3, Ps2, Xbox 360, Wii

Call Of Duty 4 with added tanks, dogs and Wehrmacht.

Mortal Kombat Vs DC – PS3, Xbox 360

If you’re not going to kit out the Mortal Kombat chimps with Kryptonite rings so you can rip Superman’s head off you really, really shouldn’t have bothered.

More to come as I plough through them.

All new* Nintendo DS revealed. Sigh.

*Of course, when we say ‘all new’ what we really mean is ‘exactly the same with very little in the way of useful improvements’. Go go Gadget Kotaku Post!

During their Fall Press Conference today, Nintendo have – as expected – announced a new version of the Nintendo DS. Called the Nintendo DSi, it eschews the GBA slot (boo!) in favour of a slight downsizing (it’s a little thinner) and a range of improvements. The handheld’s screens have been enlarged, and will now be 17% bigger (at 3.25 inches) than those found on the DS Lite. As for the rumoured additions, both have proven to be correct, with “audio enhancements” made to the handheld, while it will also now include a .3 megapixel (640×480) camera. And that’s just the start of it.

The DSi also features an SD memory card slot, making it possible to take pictures with the DSi and then view them on the Nintendo Wii. The DSi features a built-in browser, and it’s possible to download games and keep them on the DSi.
For digital delivery purchases, there is a DSi Shop, from which users can download DSiWare from. Pricing categories for the DSiWare are: Free, 200 points, 500 points and “Premium” or 800 points. Customers will get 1000 free points to spend at the DSi Shop that are good until March 2010.

The DSi will be released in Japan on November 1. It will retail for ￥18,900 (USD$180), and will be available in two colours, white and black. It will be released in other

Image!

Apathy!
It’s hardly surprising that Nintendo have shoved out a revision of thier existing hardware as they’ve been doing it for years, neither is it surprising that it adds not much yet enough to get the hardcore, slavering fanchildren running to the pre-order mobile. Companies like Nintendo and Sony need to keep their products fresh, it’s common business sense, but how many devices does a person need that take pictures or plays music? Yeah the screens are bigger and they’re going for the whole convergence thing with the memory and connectivity with the Wii (which should have been made more of literally years ago), but no GBA slot? I can see why but that’s just rubbish.
Still, come spring 2009 people will be chomping at the bit for them.

LittleBigQuestionmark

I was fortuitous enough to receive a beta key for the LittleBigPlanet beta on the Ps3 (not that it’s on anything else) which gave me cause to do a little dance and actually turn on my Ps3 for the first time in about a month and half.
For those not in the know LittleBigPlanet is a platform game with a difference. Aside from being ridiculously cute and narrated by Stephen Fry, the feature that seems to be pushed to the fore is the level creator. This phrase does not do said feature justice. Let me explain:
The platforming section of the game is a very amusing physics puzzle based jump-around-and-collect things-athon with some freaky characters and some brilliant art direction. As you flounce around the levels you come across various collectables like stickers and objects and even costumes to kit out your Sackboy.
Ah, Sackboy. Sackboy rocks. There’s (seemingly, I don’t know if there’s anything more you can do with these) pointless things you can do with him, like change his facial expressions and move his arms about and what have you, but he’s so bloody adorable it’s sickening. I want a Sackboy toy, a plushie, a knitted doll, ANYTHING! Currently my Sackboy is a semi pirate with a ‘tache like Swearengen out of Deadwood.
Anyway, so yeah, you run about, collecting ’stickers’ and materials and whatnot, collecting little orby things for points and having wierd races on rocking horses on wheels. Wheelie horses? You get the idea. Once I’d had my fill of the floaty gravity platforming goodness I moved onto the creator.
Well I tried to. Instead I had to wade through 90 billion turorials. But you know what? It needed doing, because the creator is phenominal. It’s not just some weak little toolkit with which to create uninspired dross, this thing is phenominal! Seriously, the sheer amount of bits, bobs, odds, sods, gubbins, whatnots, thingummies and doodads you have at your disposal is amazing. And you can make textures by photographing them with the Eye Create camera. When I get through the rest of the tutorials I’ll post some more about it, but there’s something niggling at the back of my head.
Who wants to play this?
It’s amazing. It’s a truly brilliant piece of software, but the creator (which is what’s being pushed, directly or otherwise) requires a ridiculous amount of dedication to get the most out of. It’s simple enough to use, and most people will pick it up in an hour or so, but to make the levels that do it justice might require OCD levels of graph paper planning and though, not to mention the amount of time it’ll take to put it together and tweak it. Sony are pinning a lot of hopes on this, and I think it may be something of a disappointment to them. I hope it isn’t, because it deserves as big an audience as possible, but if they think they’re going to, say, drag Wii owners over to the PS3 with it they’re going to be sorely disappointed.

IT IS TRUE!! GIVE IT TO MEEEEEE!!

Obligatory collector’s edition too.

World of Warcraft: The Wrath of the Lich King on DVD-ROM.
The Art of World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, a 208-page book featuring never-before-seen images from the game.
An exclusive in-game pet: Frosty, the baby frost wyrm.
A behind-the-scenes DVD containing over an hour of developer interviews, the Wrath of the Lich King intro cinematic with director’s commentary, and more.
The official soundtrack CD, containing 21 epic tracks from the game, along with exclusive bonus tracks.
A mouse pad featuring a map of the newly opened continent of Northrend.
Two World of Warcraft Trading Card Game March of the Legion™ starter decks, along with two exclusive cards available only in the Collector’s Edition

Official WotLK page

My love of WoW at the moment is on something of a rollercoaster; some days I’m adoring it, some days I want to throw my PC out of the window through boredom and frustration. There’s the new patch coming before WotLK that actually contains some of the things that were supposed to be included in Lich King, like Inscription profession and barber shops and all that which is a bit odd. PTR patch notes are at the official site here

Phase, Song Summoner and gaming on iPods

So, jumping on this particular bandwagon about 3 months too late I downloaded Phase the other day after hearing great things about it. Made by the lovely, awesome, brilliant, fantasmagorical Harmonix (makers of the aces Rock Band) it’s a rhythm action game for your 5th gen iPod or classic (or owt with a click wheel) where you can import songs from your iTunes library, which are scanned by the game and have a track attatched to them. The track looks like a cut down version of the Guitar Hero/Amplitude/Frequency track i.e. there are three lanes, and circles fall down the screen towards the bar at the bottom and you have to press left on the clickwheel, the centre button, or right on the clickwheel as needed.

As is probably to be expected some songs work better than others (usually the faster ones) and it’s sometimes difficult to see where the games getting the rhythm and pacing but each time I’ve been on the train since I’ve got it I’ve played this even though I have my DS and PSP in my bag. It’s a sorry state of affairs when my iPod is grabbing my attention more than either of my proper consoles and all for £3.99! Baragin.

The other game I’m interested in, yet have held off buying due to being shite at Squeenix strategy games is song Summoner. Essentially a stripped down strategy game it takes songs on your iPod and transforms them into units to make up your army. It also looks the bizniz

WOW Lich King Release Date

It’s official